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Kayla Helms - 1984 J10 Jeep

Kayla is a pretty legit chick. She definitely ain't scared, works hard, gets dirty, doesn't shy away from manual labor when needed, hunts, fishes, rides her YZ250 dirt bike all the time, has a pretty square head on her shoulders, and a sharp "get things done on a schedule" kinda mind-set. She is a full-time student and the driving force behind a startup clothing line called Shibby. She has also recently taken over a lot of the 4x4cross weekly behind-the-scenes operations, which mainly include keeping my scatterbrained and easily distracted butt in check. The cool thing is that at the same time she does all this work stuff, she can clean up to look and act the part of the most professional promo girl around, or just as easily convert to a classy southern lady—on demand.

Kayla is currently a full-time student in the medical field and studying to be an anesthesia technician and CMA. She's from the Dirty Mo, Mooresville, North Carolina, and got into four-wheeling largely due to her dad. She's no lightweight; he definitely brought her up right, and it is one of the reasons she owns and runs this killer Jeep J10. She wants to thank him big time. Without his help, she says the project would have never happened. Building the truck really brought them closer together and created a tight bond she says she wouldn‘t trade for the world. She wants to thank her Uncle Matt for being such a huge help with the truck. She would also like to thanks Pete Weber at Weber's Custom Paint for the outstanding show-quality paint job.

The truck itself is an '84 J10 Jeep with the original AMC 360ci motor under the hood, and it's still fitted to the factory four-speed manual transmission. They swapped in 1-ton running gear and set the truck up with 12-inch lift springs. The tires and wheels are a 44-inch Boggers on 16.5x14 chrome steel wheel combo, or V-treads, depending on what she's doing. The paint job is trick. They like to refer to it is a Bud Light Blue, and her matching Bud Light beer tap tranny shifter really helps bring the theme together. To put a small yet significant ladylike finishing touch on the build, all the shocks steering stabilizer boots are hot pink.